Search for Missing Woman Again Fails : Santa Clarita: The chief detective pursues his investigation of the husband in the April, 1991, disappearance of Ann Racz.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators unsuccessfully searched a dusty Santa Clarita canyon Tuesday for the body of a Newhall woman missing since April, 1991, and the detective on the case said he believes the woman’s husband killed his wife after she filed for divorce.

But an attorney representing John Racz said Detective Louie Danoff’s investigation into the disappearance of Ann Racz is nothing more than a personal crusade based on suspicion and supposition.

“I would hope that cases would be based upon facts and evidence rather than someone’s opinion,” attorney Darryl Mounger said. “Fortunately, they don’t try people based on Danoff’s opinion.”

Racz, who has been neither charged nor arrested in connection with his wife’s disappearance, has told investigators that Ann Racz is away on a long trip. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

An elementary school teacher and former sheriff’s deputy, Racz, 45, has been a suspect in his wife’s disappearance since last summer, Danoff said. Ann Racz, then 42, vanished without a trace during a drive to a local fast-food restaurant. Her car was later found in the Airport Flyaway lot in Van Nuys.

Racz has been interviewed by investigators, but Danoff described him as uncooperative.

Lt. Frank Merriman, Danoff’s superior, said investigators have not been able to clear Racz of his wife’s disappearance, but they also have been unable to collect enough evidence to arrest him or ask the district attorney’s office to file charges.

During Tuesday’s search near Soledad Canyon and Spring Canyon roads, crews dug in search of skeletal remains or bits of clothing at six sites Danoff and other searchers identified as suspicious, where there were mounds of loose dirt or depressions in the ground.

The searchers were led to the area by two self-proclaimed psychics two weeks ago. Sites were marked for digging later. Clothing found during the earlier search did not belong to Ann Racz.

Although Tuesday’s search turned up no trace of the woman, Danoff did not appear to be frustrated.

“She’ll be found,” Danoff told a pack of reporters following him from site to site through the brush. “No problem. This isn’t TV where you got 30 minutes to do it. I got all the time in the world.”

Danoff admitted that Tuesday’s search was intended to get media coverage as well as be a thorough investigation.

Racz “is not bothered by searches like this, but it keeps me in the public eye,” Danoff said, explaining that television pictures and newspaper stories may generate the tip he needs for a break in the case.

To that end, the Sheriff’s Department has distributed an unusual missing-persons flyer with photographs of both Ann and John Racz and statements that implicate John Racz in his wife’s disappearance. “The Missing Person’s husband left the family residence right after the Missing Person and returned to the residence alone,” the flyer reads.

Mounger complained that Danoff and other investigators are harassing his client.

“He has a crusade going on here,” Mounger said. “It’s a charade, but it is a crusade. . . .He doesn’t want to be confused with the facts. He’s made up his mind.”